Aras, a leading provider of digital thread solutions for product lifecycle management (PLM) and engineering AI, today announced the availability of the Aras Digital Manufacturing Engineering Accelerator. Built on Aras Innovator, the accelerator helps manufacturers create, manage, and govern manufacturing-ready product structures earlier in the lifecycle, while keeping traceability between Engineering BOMs (EBOMs) and Manufacturing BOMs (MBOMs).

Many manufacturers still rebuild the MBOM in spreadsheets or ERP systems after engineering structures stabilize. Plants adapt these structures to local production requirements, creating differences that can be difficult to track as designs change. The Digital Manufacturing Engineering Accelerator extends the Manufacturing Process Planning (MPP) application included in Aras Innovator’s composable application library, creating a governed manufacturing definition layer allowing teams to derive manufacturing structures from engineering or author them independently. Aras worked closely with its Japanese user group (JAMP) – representing over 50 companies – to develop this PLM Solution Accelerator.

Extending the digital thread into manufacturing planning

Connecting engineering and manufacturing on one governed digital thread enables manufacturing teams to begin planning while designs are still evolving, rather than waiting until they are finalized. Manufacturing decisions and plant specific requirements become structured, traceable data instead of managed through disconnected tools and tribal knowledge. This digital thread is the governed data foundation on which to build AI-driven automation.

Accelerating time to value

Aras Accelerators are preconfigured application templates for advanced PLM use cases. Grounded in PLM best practice, customers can rapidly configure and adapt with native low-code tools while maintaining compatibility with future upgrades.

Key capabilities

  • Controlled EBOM-to-MBOM derivation: Derive, restructure, reuse, or independently author Manufacturing Parts as governed objects, with traceability to engineering.

  • Visual MBOM authoring: A side-by-side EBOM and MBOM view for building and reviewing manufacturing structures.

  • Plant- and configuration-aware MBOMs: Manage applicability by plant, date, tail number, location, instance, and configurable effectivity conditions.

  • Continuous reconciliation: Surface missing parts, manufacturing-only content, quantity differences, and intentional divergence as products evolve.

  • Governed manufacturing change: Manufacturing change requests, change orders, and change tasks, linked to engineering change.

  • Manufacturing-owned, engineering-aligned: Manufacturing owns its own structured definition of how the product is built, traceable to engineering, so manufacturing-only content and local decisions are captured as governed data rather than lost in spreadsheets and tribal knowledge.

“Our members asked for a way to begin manufacturing planning earlier without losing traceability, and without spending so much time re-entering and reconciling data between engineering and manufacturing,” said Yutaro Mishima, Chairman of JAMP and Senior Director, Business Operation Group, DX Strategy Division at Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd. “By directly connecting EBOMs and MBOMs, the accelerator captures each plant’s requirements as data and keeps manufacturing in step with design changes. An adaptable MBOM is essential for keeping up with change.”

Other early adopters of the solution include Netherlands-based aerospace and defense manufacturer Aeronamic. “The Digital Manufacturing Engineering Accelerator extends the value of our Aras Innovator program by enabling greater traceability across complex aerospace systems, supporting multiple sites, and allowing engineering and manufacturing teams to develop their BOMs in parallel,” said Ronny Blaauwgeers, Director Manufacturing Engineering at Aeronamic. “This will lead to fewer costly errors, improved engineering productivity, faster time-to-market, increased flexibility, and reduced material waste.”

The Digital Manufacturing Engineering Accelerator is designed for organizations with complex products, frequent engineering changes, and multisite and plant-specific production, where traceability is key to saving costs and improving efficiency.

About Aras

Aras provides a digital thread platform for product lifecycle management and engineering AI. Built on an AI-native, low-code foundation, it enables the rapid delivery of flexible solutions. Aras connects teams across disciplines and functions to critical product data and agentic AI throughout the product lifecycle and extended value chain. Visit aras.com to learn more and follow Aras on LinkedIn, YouTube, X, and Facebook.

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